Quick Take: the Trials of Caecus, Ancient Rome's Donald Trump
The Roman past can tell us something about the American future
As you may know, Donald Trump will likely become the first American to run for president as a felon, after a 12-person jury found him guilty of 34 charges of falsifying business records.
As my colleagues in the Wall Street Journal (where I spent 13 wonderful years) explain here, the big questions now are Trump’s potential sentence and whether he can overturn the verdict on appeal. That’s not for me to ponder.
As a historian, the thing that I’m concerned about is historical precedent. And, as somebody who has been reading and writing a lot about ancient Rome, I find that Trump’s current predicament is most similar to that of Appius Claudius Caecus, the most prominent Roman politician on the years either side of 300 BC, when the Roman Republic hadn’t yet started its Punic Wars for control of the Western Mediterranean against Carthage.
First of all, it’s important to understand that, when I speak of “trials of Caecus,” I don’t mean actual legal cases. Caecus, unlike Trump, was never tried in a court of justice. But their careers present interesting parallels, particularly at a key juncture ahead of an important election.
Caecus was the first in a later long line of patrician demagogues who tried to leverage popular support for power and influence without quite aspiring to becoming Rome’s tyrant. Julius Caesar was the first to have that aspiration, some two centuries later.
Widely seen as a political heir of Philo, the first plebeian to become dictator (a Roman office, as emergency, often wartime leader) and in effect the informal leader of Rome’s plebeians during much of his career, Caecus was fond of speeches, and he had a sweeter tongue than Athens’ Pericles (which wasn’t all that difficult, to be honest).
In fact, Caecus was later considered by some as a father of Latin prose due to several lost books he wrote on Greek models, and his now-lost speeches were favorably referred to by Cicero.
Throughout his career, Caecus was a pretty unashamed populist. When he served as censor between 312 and 308 BC, Caecus worked with the Plebeian Council to transfer the power to revise the membership of the senate from consuls to censors, a highly controversial measure that allowed for more plebeians to become senators.
Caecus’ whole career was a long clash with fellow aristocrats, who were intent on curbing populist temptations by limiting the ability of candidates for public office to canvass support from voters. The aristocrats knew full well that if most plebeians voted, they would have less control over them.
Like Trump, Caecus was in love with great public works, or at least the idea of building more of those, and was often surrounded by low-born cronies whose vulgar antics infuriated his enemies: the first son of former slave to rise to high office in Rome was Gnaeus Flavius, a former secretary of Caecus who became aedile in 304 BC.
Twitter fights? Caecus also had those. Even his friend Flavius had them: as an appalled aristocracy vehemently protested, Flavius publicly posted an account of legal proceedings so that the literate poor, many of whom were small-time traders, could understand how they could defend themselves in court, and published in the Forum a calendar indicating the “dies fasti” in which legal business was allowed.
Caecus’ policies created much tension in his time. It was only the outbreak of the Third Samnite War in 298 BC that stopped contending Roman factions from committing physical violence against each other.
The most Trumpian moment in Caecus’ career came at this point. Quintus Fabius Rullianus, a former dictator and like Caecus a patrician rather than a plebeian by birth, was recalled to service and ravaged much of Samnite territory.
Rullianus was no friend of Caecus, but his victories had gained him great popularity to the point that he was almost certain to win election to the consulate in 297 BC, so Caecus came up with a plan: he also stood for election.
The way Rome worked, two consuls were elected annually — one junior and one senior — but by this time the custom had emerged that two patricians couldn’t serve together. Traditionally, the patrician candidate with the fewest chances (in this case, Caecus) would have been expected to step down from the contest, but Caecus refused.
Rather cleverly, Caecus argued that the will of the people had to be supreme and whoever were their top two choices for consul should be elected. He seems to have been bluffing, knowing that the conservative, by-the-book Rullianus would be loath to be part of a consular ticket with him, particularly one that could trigger a political crisis with the traditionally sidelined plebeian majority — Caecus’ own constituency.
As Caecus likely predicted (we have no way of knowing for certain, and the historian Livy, only source for the events, doesn’t provide any particular interpretation), the crisis was resolved when Quintus Fabius withdrew from the contest, allowing the feisty Caecus to be elected, for a final time, together with one of his plebeian allies.
This crisis, in my view, is not so dissimilar from the one Trump faces ahead of the November presidential election: America like Rome at the time has two elderly candidates who cannot and will not work together, and both its legal system and political tradition are being tested by the fact that none of them will give way, for now.
Clearly, Rullianus Vs Caecus was not an election in the American sense, and Caecus was no felon when he stood for the highest office in Rome. But it still was an electoral contest shaped by a legal fight, over who can and cannot rule the land, and it was one decided by political pressures (many patricians begged Rullianus to stay in the contest, and call Caecus’ bluff) and appeals to public opinion and public support.
It’s important to note that Caecus, as I will explain in future posts to come over the next month, went on to become an illustrious statesman much quoted by future Romans, like Cicero.
However, Cicero himself, perhaps the most perceptive observer of Roman politics, would have probably thought that the closest thing that Rome had to Donald Trump was his own contemporary enemy: Catiline. That’s a story for another time.
This is all very fascinating. I'm listening to the History of Rome Podcast right now (for the 2nd time, first in many years) and heard him talk about Caecus and had to look him up to see if anyone had written something like this.
I'm glad I found you, this seems like my kind of publication.
Name two significant accomplishments Biden has made.
I'd even go so far as to extend that back to his Senate days.